Paula, wearing her spindle-spun Blue Jay shawl in an absolute perfect imitation of the original, color-wise, with Sue, and that cute tall guy standing behind her.

Joan, who lives in Vermont and whose blog is called knittingbytheocean.Â My daughter, when she moved to Vermont, described it as being like California without the ocean (and with real weather), so Joan’s blog name has always made me chuckle.

My sister Carolyn, who met me at JFK Airport during our layover on the way home.Â It took her as long to get there as it took us to fly from Vermont, even though she lives in Manhattan.Â She scheduled her son to fly home to coincide with our stop and we had a wonderful, albeit all too short time together.Â But at least I got to see her!Â And I did not risk missing my flight this time, given our four-hour layover.Â I snapped this picture as she was answering a call from him saying his plane had just landed.

This is a shot my childhood friend Karen took near the Potomac, looking up at Swain’s Lock at a point where there’s an overflow release for the C&O Canal.

The spot where I fell through the canoe, several steps away and looking the opposite direction from the above picture. Yes, that’s straight down.Â I knew you’d all want to see the spot.